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Splashin' at the Ritz

THE underground chamber might almost be mistaken for a temple, or perhaps the Broadway set of ''Metamorphoses,'' with its faux-classical statuary, its murals and frieze, its rotunda light casting a diffuse, calming glow. Except for the terry-covered chaises longues surrounding the central pool. The atmosphere was serene and dignified -- no games of monkey-in-the-middle here. It seemed as if it might be bad form to splash.

But then, this was no ordinary swimming pool; this was the pool at the Hôtel Ritz on the Place Vendôme in Paris. And there I was, doing the backstroke.

For 20 years -- since just before my first trip to Paris, as a matter of fact -- I have been swimming religiously, two or three times a week. My 45-minute routine takes me precisely eight-tenths of a mile, and a few years ago I added a weekly hour of water aerobics. Though beneficial for my health, it hasn't done me much visible good; the movie star whose figure most resembles mine is Judi Dench (seen in a swimsuit in ''Iris.'') But if I go more than a few days without a swim -- especially a few days of hauling luggage and being crammed into coach -- my whole body hurts, and everyone around me knows it.

Swimming is no problem at home; my building in Riverdale has an indoor pool. Nor is it a problem in many hotels or at beach resorts, and friends with pools, from Boston to Florida, are trained to schedule time there when I visit. But in many places, especially in cold climates, finding a pool becomes nothing short of a quest. I have swum on six continents and can't help wondering what I'll do when I reach Antarctica someday.

My swim cap is printed ''Jury's Waterford,'' a souvenir of a stay at that hotel in Ireland; Lycra caps were selling for about $1.50 each, so I scooped up a handful. My goggles are currently held in place with a replacement strap bought in a Speedo store at the Sydney airport with those last bits of local currency. I cover up with a ''Duke Swimming'' T-shirt, from a fellowship when I could feel like an Olympian in the university pool. ''Did you swim for Duke?'' I am frequently asked in the elevator. ''No,'' I admit, ''I swam at Duke.''

I have been known to plan my travels around opportunities to swim -- for example, breaking the very long trip to Australia with overnight stays both ways at the Westin at Los Angeles International Airport because its Web site assured me it had a heated pool. But whenever possible it pays to leave the hotel for a neighborhood pool, which can be a window on local culture.

In Iceland, swimming is so much a part of daily life that it is said if you want to hear the latest gossip, you go to the pool. Iceland has its Blue Lagoon, the ethereal swimming hole created from geothermal power plant runoff that has become a tourist attraction. But it also has many public pools, all of them outdoors -- year-round -- naturally heated far underground. So, one gray day in May of last year, when the air temperature was about 50, I put on my Icelandic sweater, a raincoat and gloves to walk to a pool in Reykjavik.

In the locker room I stripped off the woolens, changed into my swimsuit, took the required shower (a sharp-eyed matron checked), and then dashed the 20 feet or so from the door to the pool. The water was bathtub-warm, and mist rose from the surface into air that suddenly seemed not so chilly. It was impossible to pace myself to the other swimmers, since they kept moving from one lane to another to another in a way that would have started a fistfight among the sharks of Manhattan. But it didn't matter; the water was so warm that no one was moving fast enough to precipitate a crash.

At the Hotel AXA Prague last fall, I arrived about 11:30 a.m. and was told I'd have to wait a half-hour because a children's swim class was in session. When I jumped in at noon, the lunch-hour rush had already begun, but the swimmers in the wide lanes were unfailingly polite and yielded to an obvious newcomer. By the time I had showered and dressed, I could have had the pool to myself, but I wouldn't have missed communing with that gracious, relaxed crowd for anything.

On a trip to Russia in early 1994, I found that at two hotel pools the Soviet system was not quite dead yet. The tiny one at the Astoria in St. Petersburg had its limited hours posted at the door, but finding it open was mostly a matter of luck; I finally did one morning about 7. The large pool at the Cosmos in Moscow, a triumph of Soviet architecture and management, was mostly empty, possibly because of the rigmarole required for entry: hotel guests had to go to the concierge, get a voucher, go to a cashier to pay for the voucher and take it back to the concierge to have it stamped, all before trudging down a long passageway to present it at the locker room.

THERE are pools I have lusted after and been forbidden to enter, like the two, indoor and outdoor, on the tour of San Simeon. There are pools that only seemed forbidding, like the one at the Amboseli game preserve in Kenya, where giant beetles clung to the rim. (The monkeys scooped them out for snacks.)

Frequently in recent years, my guide has been the online Swimmers Guide (visit www .swimmersguide.com), which lists pools open to the public by country and city or region, with comments by readers who have been there. Which is how I came to be swimming at the Ritz.

''This pool is notable for two things,'' the Swimmers Guide said. ''(1) It is the largest indoor, hotel pool in Paris; and (2) it is the pool where the late U.S. Ambassador to Paris, Pamela Harriman, had her fatal stroke.'' It added, ''Day memberships at the Health Club are available, but we don't know the cost.'' Apparently no online readers had been there to report back, and little wonder: the fee was 122 euros on weekdays (153 on weekends), which allows swimmers to return for a second dip or perhaps a dry workout in the health club the same day. Billed to my credit card at $116, it was the most expensive swim of my life to date. But it was the Ritz.

''That's a great place to meet a rich guy!'' my friend Carol said. We decided I would pack my dressiest swimsuit, and Carol, size 2, offered to lend me her pareu to wrap around myself. There was no need, of course; the Ritz supplies bathrobes, made of terry that is almost too heavy to lift when damp.

When I arrived, only women were actually in the pool; the men, whose grooming suggested they might be, say, princes of Monaco, sat on chaises, reading newspapers and sipping power drinks. The women, all soignée and some glamorous enough to be French film stars, languidly paddled back and forth, with minimal exertion and maximum grace.

The pool is about 55 feet long, just a bit shorter than mine at home, judging by the number of strokes in a lap. The shallow end is just deep enough for my knuckles to clear. I did my usual 45-minute routine, then added 15 minutes of wall work from water aerobics to get my money's worth before retiring to a chaise to contemplate this elegant world and my place in it, however temporary.

The moment was probably one of the glories of my global quest. But the satisfaction was muted, compared to the joy in realizing that my flight to New York a few days later would have me back in Riverdale in plenty of time to do laps in a simple blue-tiled rectangle overlooking the Harlem River.